…..now Snow’s the Big Story

Everyone in Europe, it seems, has been battling with snow this week. Everyone that is, except us and anyone within easy driving distance of our part of the country.

Road clearing in Cherbourg, 2nd. Dec

Night after night the French news bulletins have been full of tales of woe, endurance, hardship, slipping and sliding and Dunkirk Spirit in Lyon, Orléans, Brittany, and Strasbourg. Before passing on to the rest of the news, we’d then have a shot or two of traffic jams on a motorway outside Newcastle, or a firmly shut-for-business Gatwick Airport. Neighbours and friends gleefully filled us in on how dire they’d heard things were in the UK.

Finally, yesterday morning, the snow arrived here too. Frankly, we knew we weren’t going to get the news crews down here looking for a story. It hardly settled, and then it began to disappear. Still, I found excuses in the afternoon not to get on, but to sit next to the woodburner and do some jobs on the computer. I got distracted. Somehow, although it’s not at all my newspaper of choice, I started to look at the readers’ photos on the Telegraph website. They’re terrific. Gorgeous snowscapes from all over Britain; funnies, such as the rabbit tentatively sniffing at a snowman; curiosities such as the milk bottles out on the step whose contents had expanded to make tall chimneys of frozen milk extrude from the top. Sorry – my links won’t lead you to the exact photos, because the Telegraph’s organized them into galleries. But have a look anyway. You too may spend quite a while browsing through for your favourite.

Near Roquefixade

And now here are our snow photos, taken on the way to Pamiers, and home from Foix. We were meant to be Christmas shopping. Well, that didn’t last. A cup of decadently rich smooth hot chocolate at a chocolatier in Pamiers, and we were off. The pretty way home, via Foix, seemed a much better idea. My photos will impress nobody who’s been battling with the real stuff this last week. But we like them anyway